Instead of getting the usual tour of Union Square from a double-decker bus, you could learn about the city’s history from a man pretending to be another man who pretended to be emperor of the United States. That would be Joshua Norton, who while living in San Francisco declared himself emperor of the United States and protector of Mexico in 1859.

The guide leading Emperor Norton's Fantastic San Francisco Time Machine walking tour is dressed in the same kind of imperial uniform that the real Norton wore around San Francisco to much amusement from Gold Rush-era locals. It includes visits to the St. Francis Hotel, 1906 earthquake landmarks, and the site of Norton’s former boarding-house home at what’s now a privately owned public space. Based on a previous tour the Chronicle took, prepare to stock up on such local trivia as the route of the world’s first cable car, and the number of red roses kept every day at the Palace Hotel.

There are several guided tours available of the famous and striking street murals in San Francisco’s Mission – including Precita Eyes Muralists – or you can simply explore by yourself down alley after alley. But for an immersive experience that feels like a documentary, try the Mission tour offered on the GPS-assisted Detour app, narrated by Roberto “The Mayor of the Mission” Hernandez. Not only will you feast your eyes on colorful art, but you’ll also hear multiple perspectives about the ever-changing demographics of the Mission from people who live and do business there.

Highlights of the Detour include the restored Carnaval Mural and Balmy Alley. Along the way you can have a sandwich at Wise Sons Deli, a symbol of gentrification that wasn’t welcomed by everyone, and a pastry at La Victoria Bakery. The tour also points out a new building with million-dollar condos that sticks out in an area populated by much plainer Hispanic-owned businesses. As Hernandez says, the tour explains that the phrase “I belong” can be a double-edged sword: “If you're saying it to someone else, it can mean, ‘You don't belong.’ And who gets to belong, that is a real emotional topic around here.”

Rather than stumble aimlessly into trinket shops or dim-sum joints, you can explore the many narrow alleys of Chinatown and learn the stories behind them from people who were raised there. The guides of Chinatown Alleyway Tours are students in high school and college who are well-versed with the labyrinthine layout of the neighborhood and all its easter-egg points of interest – such as the erhu-playing retired barber who appeared in “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

The tour, which happens every Saturday morning, also delves into the sociopolitical aspects of living in Chinatown, including the racism that immigrant residents there experienced for decades and the difficult housing issues they face. The company is a non-profit that aims to serve Chinatown as a community and not just a tourist spot. But they’ll totally hook you up with fortune cookies if you ask.

By one count, San Francisco has 367 ghost signs – neglected painted advertisements, often for businesses that have been extinct for decades. They’re most concentrated around the Tenderloin, a neighborhood that might scare some but is fine to visit during the day as long as you stay aware of your surroundings.

Some highlights: The gorgeous and still-intact Zubelda Cigarettes ad from 1912 near the corner of Larkin and Geary; the vintage 7-Up sign on the corner of the El Rosa Hotel, itself an important piece of LGBT history in the city; and the Omar Turkish Blends cigarette ad on a building behind the Union Square Sports Bar on Mason Street.

If you want to branch out from the Tenderloin, other noteworthy ghost signs include the Hunt’s Donuts sign in the Mission on the side of what is now the modern restaurant Commonwealth; a restored Albers Flapjack Flour sign on the side of the Victoria Theatre in the Mission; and the “It Hasta Be Shasta” soda ad behind a 76 gas station near the corner of Potrero Avenue and 17 Street.

If you’re interested in a guided tour, contact Kasey Smith, an expert on San Francisco ghost signs who still occasionally shows people around and gave SFGATE a memorable look at ghost signs of the Tenderloin.

The history of San Francisco’s Tenderloin may not be pretty, but it is essential. The Tenderloin Museum offers both day and night adult-only tours of the neighborhood, led by guides who actually live and work there. Depending on when you go, you’ll visit an SRO where Muhammad Ali trained, drink at a bar that’s an LGBT landmark, and learn about the Tenderloin’s seedy past with gambling dens, speakeasies, and prohibition. You can also see what the neighborhood is doing to renew itself while taking care of its poor and homeless.

For San Francisco criminal lore with a more 1800s bent, take the Secrets, Scandals, and Scoundrels Tour with Free Tours By Foot. The pay-what-you-want tour covers such Gold Rush-era infamy as the Great Diamond Hoax and the Egg War of 1863 involving the Farallon Islands, plus such colorful characters as “Emperor” Norton and Black Bart, the Wild West outlaw known for leaving poems at the scenes of his crimes.

San Francisco’s groovy hippie history isn’t all you can discover on the free San Francisco City Guides tour of Haight-Ashbury. Depending on your guide, you may also learn about the neighborhood’s Victorian past (and the houses that remain).

San Francisco Chronicle Editor in Chief Audrey Cooper has been a volunteer guide with City Guides since 2009, and the Haight tour was her first. She calls it “a must-do, especially this year as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love.” The tour may include a walk down the Panhandle, which as Cooper said, “was the site of the infamous Love Pageant Rally, which inspired the idea for the Human Be-In.” It also ends at the “Grateful Dead House,” a Victorian where members of the band lived and the site of a Summer of Love drug bust.

Practice your best Sam Spade impersonation while walking through the San Francisco streets that inspired “The Maltese Falcon” and other hard-boiled detective novels. Don Herron has been giving Dashiell Hammett tours in the city since 1977, and while he mainly works only for private groups now, he is offering a public tour on March 26. (If you miss that tour, check his site periodically for other ones.)

The four-hour walk includes buildings, back-alleys, and bars Hammett brought to life in his writing. It includes Burritt Street, which includes a plaque that reads as if it’s actual history but actually refers to characters from “The Maltese Falcon,” noting the spot where femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy shot and killed Spade’s partner, Miles Archer.

There’s more than enough interactive learning, playground space, and ice cream to spend half a day with the kids around the Embarcadero and SoMa. Start at the Exploratorium for some mechanical tinkering and some crawling in the Tactile Dome. Reward the children for their curious minds by heading to the Ferry Building for some burgers at Gott’s Roadside and ice cream and Humphrey Slocum, while enjoying the view of the East Bay (on a good day).

Once you’re fueled up for more mind expansion, walk to Yerba Buena Gardens and the Children’s Creativity Museum. Let your kids choose between practicing stop-motion animation, programming a robot to navigate a maze, perform in a rock band, or one of the other activities here. Afterward, they can blow off some steam in the nearby playground or the Creativity Carousel.

The three-hour tours offered by Gourmet Walks will gladly enable anyone who bombards their Instagram followers with food photos. The company offers four tours in different San Francisco neighborhoods and another one in downtown Napa, with tickets ranging from $80 to $90.

Tastings include a “sustainable fish taco” on the NOPA/Alamo Square tour, a gourmet cheese shop in Russian Hill, banh mi sandwiches on Fillmore Street, and gingerbread cupcakes in Hayes Valley.

The three-hour tours offered by Gourmet Walks will gladly enable anyone who bombards their Instagram followers with food photos. The company offers four tours in different San Francisco neighborhoods and

For a better understanding of the seismic forces that made San Francisco the hilly wonderland that it is, take the “San Francisco Rocks” tour with Discovery Street Tours. The 2 ½-hour tour through Dolores and Corona Heights promises to visit “stellar rock formations that draw geologists from around the world,” and while that includes some uphill climbing, snacks are provided to help you power through. Tours with the company are usually private and only available on request, but it leads a geology tour once a year in April to remember the 1906 earthquake and Earth Day.

Take a rugged walk up hilly neighborhoods where transient workers flocked in search of quick riches, rapidly urbanizing the the area and driving the land value way up – in the mid-1800s. The Rancho San Miguel Hilltopper tour, offered by Shaping San Francisco, focuses on the former Mexican land grant that once reached almost as far as Daly City. The three-hour tour promises a series walks up stairs and paths to the Islais Creek headwaters and the tops of Twin Peaks, Tank Hill, Mt. Olympus, and Corona Heights (whew!).

To get closer to the ocean than Rancho San Miguel, take the free Offline & Outside tour with SF Native Tours. The monthly excursion promises to take you “away from technology and into the hidden outdoor secrets of San Francisco" with a four-hour walk through the Presidio, Sea Cliff, and Pacific Heights.

The “Beer, Dunes, and Trains” tour, given March 18 by Shaping San Francisco, offers a time machine into SoMa’s industrial past. Where upscale condos and shops stand now, there used to be sand dunes and railroad track. You’ll also learn about the breweries that used to live here, and the ones that took their place.

Dive into San Francisco’s long history of social movements on the “Radical SF Route” tour with Wild SF. The three-hour walking tour goes from the Castro to the Mission and includes the following Castro stops: the former site of Harvey Milk’s camera store, the GLBT Museum, Human Rights Campaign Store. In the Mission you’ll see the murals of the Women’s Building, and stop by the sex-positive Good Vibrations store.

They’re on rooftops, they’re inside skyscrapers, and they’re tucked away in alleys. They are the legally mandated privately owned public open spaces (POPOS) of San Francisco’s Financial District, and if you haven’t heard of them it’s because the businesses that paid for those spaces don’t like to advertise them.

There are several spectacular rooftop POPOS that offer views of downtown, but the best may be atop 1 Kearny (above), which you can only access after showing your driver’s license and listening to a long list of ground rules.

For an up-close look at some POPOS and to learn the history surrounding them, take an architectural tour with Rick Evans. He gave SFGATE a POPO lesson inside the new LinkedIn building’s gleaming public space.

Don’t plan on finding San Francisco’s version of Paris’ Pere Lachaise cemetery, because it doesn’t exist – the city’s dead were moved to nearby Colma decades ago. Or at least, most of them were. The occasional human remains still turn up around Lincoln Park Golf Course and the Legion of Honor, which used to be the site of City Cemetery, where San Francisco’s working-class immigrants were buried.

Start with Hole 1 of Lincoln Park Golf Course -- just make sure you stay out of the golfers’ way –and approach the Chinese funerary structure that stands near the fairway in ruins (seen here). A couple of holes later, overlooking the ocean, you’ll happen upon a 14-foot bronze memorial dedicated to mariners buried there. Keep walking to the Legion of Honor, where almost 800 bodies were uncovered during seismic renovations in 1993. Share some ghost stories afterward at the Tee Off Bar & Grill.

For a guided tour, look up John Martini, a former park ranger who’s an expert on San Francisco’s former cemeteries.

Most tourists may head to Union Square, but for a more neighborhoody shopping feel, you can spend a few hours browsing the boutiques of Hayes Valley. Just go in with a budget, or you may wake up with a credit-card hangover the next day.

For such a small area, the options are a mouthful: Women can hunt for independent-designer clothing and accessories at Amour Vert (above), Lava 9, and Dish Clothing; and men can do the same at Convert or Sean. Or shop for both his-and-hers shopping at Acrimony, Gather, and Cary Lane. Even if you’re specifically looking for Japanese or European fashion, Modern Appealing Clothing has you covered.

If you have any arms left to carry your bags, shop for vintage threads at Ver Unica, jewelry at Azil Boutique, and fancy stationary at Lavish (above). If you’d rather dress up your home than yourself, there’s the trendy modern furniture at Propeller.

You’re sure to work an appetite and thirst from all this, but you won’t have to venture far: Absinthe, Suppenkuche, and Souvla, and Patxi’s Pizza are just a few examples in Hayes Valley. Ritual Coffee Roasters will give you the caffeine boost you need, Smitten’s ice cream has you covered for dessert, and when it’s time to forget about all the damage you’ve done to your savings, you can drink craft cocktails at Two Sisters Bar and Books, or wine next door at Noir Lounge.

The GPS-assisted Beat Generation tour offered by Detour covers both the well-known literary landmarks of North Beach – City Lights bookstore and the bar Vesuvio – plus some lesser-known spots, such as the easy-to-miss Russian Hill home here Jack Kerouac wrote “On the Road” and carried an affair with his host’s wife, and the North Beach apartment building where Allen Ginsberg lived. This isn’t just a walking tour, either, as you’ll be taking a cable car ride as well.

First off, there’s absolutely no smoking, snacking, or other use of marijuana allowed on the Classic Cannabis Tour offered by Green Guide. Instead, the two-hour walks through the Haight, Alamo Square, and Buena Vista Park are purely educational, and they include the former homes of famous rock stars, information on the science and medical properties of cannabis, and a history of the social movements and legal battles surrounding it. The tours are free, though a $15 donation is suggested.

Yes, this is a roundup of San Francisco tours, but we still have to give Oakland a shout-out because there’s too much history and rapid change here to ignore. For example, you can walk by the bistros and big-box stores that populate Jack London Square now while learning about the area’s un-touristy past as a working port over 100 years ago. The city of Oakland offers various free walking tours (from around May to October), including one of the waterfront. Among the stops are the USS Potomac, known as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “floating White House,” the vestiges of the local railroad system, and a wholesale produce district that’s been operating for more than a century.

The closest thing to a walking tour 49ers fans can get in San Francisco is a trip to their former digs at Kezar Stadium – though you can drive to Levi’s Stadium for a tour. As for the Giants, they offer year-round, 90-minute tours of AT&T Park, which happens to be among the most revered baseball stadiums in America.

Stops along the way include going onto the field’s warning track, into the dugout, the visiting team's indoor batting cage, the visitors’ clubhouse, the press box, and a luxury suite. Garlic fries don’t come with the tour, but when you’re done you can walk to nearby Paragon, which serves them whether there’s a game or not.

If San Francisco has vampires, it makes sense they’d live in Nob Hill, possibly somewhere under Grace Cathedral. The lighthearted evening tour offered by “Mina Harker,” a vampiress who used to be buddies with Count Dracula and has been living in the neighborhood since 1897, includes that Gothic masterpiece and other nearby landmarks such as the Fairmont Hotel (it has a haunted penthouse), and the Pacific Union Club. The tour promises 85 percent historical facts, and 15 percent vampire alternative facts.

The East End Golden Gate Park tour with San Francisco City Guides can please nature and local history lovers alike. It includes a mix of old and new structures around the Music Concourse, site of the 1894 Midwinter Fair.

Guides on this tour "visit some of my favorite places in the city, including the National AIDS Memorial Grove,” said San Francisco Chronicle Editor in Chief Audrey Cooper, herself a volunteer guide. “On this tour you get to see my two favorite trees in the city, learn about how the Australian tree ferns came to the park, and discover the history of the Conservatory of Flowers.”

Sure, Victorian homes are touristy, but they’re still very San Francisco: The three-hour tour offered by Victorian Home Walk promises to take you inside a Queen Anne Victorian, plus mansions in Pacific Heights that are famous in their own right. This includes the “Mrs. Doubtfire” house, the house that played Grove High School in “The Princess Diaries,” and the former homes of Bill Cosby and Francis Ford Coppola. No need to fear any uphill walking on this one, because a bus drops you off in Pac Heights.

Celebrate San Francisco’s contributions to science, both high and low tech, on the Invented in San Francisco Tour with Discovery Street Tours. It promises “seven surprising stories of innovation—from tech to tunes to treats,” including the origins of the fortune cookie. The 2.5-hour tour includes what the company calls one “challenging” uphill walk, which rewards with a scenic view of the city. (Note: This tour is now only privately available. Visit the company website to make requests.)

Celebrate San Francisco’s contributions to science, both high and low tech, on the Invented in San Francisco Tour with Discovery Street Tours. It promises “seven surprising stories of innovation—from tech to tunes to treats,” including the origins of the fortune cookie. The 2.5-hour tour includes what the company calls one “challenging” uphill walk, which rewards with a scenic view of the city. (Note: This tour is now only privately available. Visit the company website to make requests.)

People have invented myriad ways to tour San Francisco – double-decker buses, go-carts, hippie vans, and even (shudder) Segways. But walking around the city is the most accessible way to do it – there are no parking hassles to deal with and no traffic holdups. Plus, if you're walking uphill, your glutes will thank you.

And this being San Francisco, you don't have to settle for some basic, one-size-fits-all tour when there's a niche for just about every interest. We've got your gourmet cheeses, vampires, and weird historical figures right here.

Check out the gallery above to see which themed walking tour strikes your fancy the most. Most of them are offered by local tour companies, and others are do-it-yourselfers that you can walk anytime.

Ghost Sign Tour of San Francisco

Media: hearst_newspapers

For some inspiration, watch this video of a tour we took of the ghost signs that are hidden in plain sight throughout the Tenderloin.